Final Project

 

The lesson plan I chose originally focused on "Teaching Poetry through Riddles," but I adapted the lesson plan to focus on the elements poetry offers and how students comprehend and use those elements. For this lesson plan, students are asked to look at two poems by Edgar Allan Poe. Their objective through this lesson was to obtain a better understanding for the elements of poetry as they are seen through these works. The first task will help students to determine a central theme or idea about a specific text (RL 7.2). The teacher will introduce the author of these two poems by providing a brief biography through a Powerpoint presentation. This is the most effective way to present biographical information because students are able to follow along with the organized information which should include visuals and possibly even videos embedded into the slide. These visuals would help keep students engaged with the information. The students would then watch “The Raven” episode of “The Simpsons,” which is a humorous adaptation on the classic poem, which will again gain the students’ interest and provide them with a current cultural relationship to the text. For the episode, the teacher will be using a DVD Player because the episode is copyrighted. The students are then asked to reflect on the video and provide a response to what they think the main idea of the poem will be prior to reading it. This exercise will serve as a precursor to another activity they will be doing in class regarding predicting outcomes in poetry. Their response will be conducted online using Blogger.com where they will have an account already set up for their unit on poetry. Having their response online allows the students to see how their predictions about the main idea compared to everyone else in class. This activity follows NETS-S (2) because they are participating in an online learning community (Blogger) to gain a better understanding of the text.

The next task will be for students to determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are presented in the text (RL 7.4). Students will be presented with an “Elements of Poetry” handout which provides the students with definitions for the elements used in the poem. The students will then work in pairs to read the poem and identify the elements listed within the poem. The students then, individually, will complete an Online Graphic Organizer  (http://www.exploratree.org.uk/) to show their findings from the poem. The graphic organizer online is helpful to the student to organize their materials coherently and also allows them to set up their information in many different models that they can choose from. That way, even though the students worked in pairs to find the information, they are working creatively alone to convey that information for assessment. This activity would follow NETS-S (1, 4) because the students are gathering and providing data using an online tool with the graphic organizer.

Shifting to the next poem “The Tell-Tale Heart” students will be asked to cite specific pieces of textual evidence to draw inferences during a prediction exercise (RL.7.1). This is a follow-up assignment that will engage students with “The Tell-Tale Heart” by using a collaborative authoring device to read the text called the ELMO document camera (NETS-S 2, 3, 4, 5). This is a choice technology to use instead of students reading from their books, since students must make predictions for this task, they won’t be able to read ahead. The teacher can print out the text in pieces according to where the teacher decided he/she wanted the students to draw inferences from the text regarding what is going to happen next. To achieve making a prediction, students will need to observe the specific elements within the poem to understand the connections between what Poe is saying and what may actually be happening in the poem to make their prediction accurate. The students’ predictions will serve as an assessment of their comprehension of the text.

The students will be constructing their own ending to “The Tell-Tale Heart” to provide a conclusion that reflects the novel. (W.7.3e)The students will be able to brainstorm in groups during the class session about how they would rewrite the ending. There are many possibilities for this assignment and by being in groups, it will help the students begin the creative thought process of concluding their own version of the ending. Students must also provide a bried rationale of how they chose their ending and why they believe it is an exceptional ending. Again, students' understanding of the elements of poetry is essential for developing a cohesive and believable alternate ending. The students will then be asked to post the conclusion they generated from their interpretation of the poem on their blog using Blogger.com. (NETS-S 1 and 2)

After completing all these assignments, students will have a final assignment that will assess their comprehension of the poem “The Tell-Tale Heart” (RL.7.10). Students will work creatively with the text to provide an Acrostic poem or a Cartoon Strip which illustrates how they would summarize the text in their own words. Students must use atleast one of the elements of poetry provided in the "Elements of Poetry" handout within either their Acrostic Poem or their Comic Strip. For example, students can use the metaphor of the ticking sound and the heart for ironic purposes through a graphic example or they can use a similar example for their Acrostic poem. For this activity, students will have the option of doing an Acrostic poem online using the Acrostic Poem Tool. (www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic) The students will use either the title or the word “narrator” to give their summary. For the cartoon strip option, students will be working with the Comic Creator Tool  (www.readwritethink.org/materials/comic) which will generate their strip for them once the information and illustrations are chosen. These creative tools allow the students to engage and create and illustrate a document which will be presented to the class (NETS-S 1,6).

Lesson Plan: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/directed-listening-thinking-activity-850.html?tab=4#tabs

Comic Strip Creator

 

 

While finishing my Final Project, I came across a Comic Strip Creator within my lesson plan, also courtesy of "Read, Write, Think." This online tool helps to generate a comic strip using information given by its author (the students) and allows them to include props, people, and setting. I illustrated below what my students could have done with the lesson plan assignment of “The Tell-Tale Heart” which was for them to use the tool to summarize the story using the comic.

 

 



I was allowed to illustrate using the comic strip what happened to make them man crazy, which took him from thinking he would get away with murder to being extremely paranoid. This is a great tool to check for students’ comprehension in a creative a fun way that doesn’t seem like it is an actual assessment. After using this tool I am able to see what students may like and dislike about using this. For one, the tool allows you to use people, but they are poorly differentiated which may cause students to become frustrated at the lack of creative capability. Another is that there are no panels that allow you to add color, which could be problematic if students are trying to use a specific color to get their point across. For example, if a color is used as a symbol within a specific text like another one of Edgar Allan Poe’s works “The Masque of Red Death,” it would be difficult for a student to discuss the red room and its meaning. Another negative is the lack of props. The props available are very generic. There is a book, a pencil, table and chair (as seen above). There aren’t a lot of creative controls a student could have while using this tool. So as a future educator, I would express to students that they can print out the panels and color or add pictures that were unavailable in the options provided.

            Some of the positives of this tool are the options for captions, which allow students to write in their own caption on the bottom of the panel. The student can get their point clearly across by providing their audience with a concise idea of what is going on in the picture. Also, students are able to use comic bubbles to show what their character is thinking or saying in the panel. This is obviously a benefit and the bubbles also include word captions to express sounds or other types of phrases that aren’t words. For example, “BRRRRRRR” is one of the phrases provided for this action.

The types of activities students could use this tool for are endless, but I think that the pairing of this activity and a story is optimal. Students would be able to portray their favorite part of the story and even put a comical twist on it by providing their own humorous interpretation. I think that would not only show they comprehended the piece, but they were able to further analyze what would make that scene ironic. This tool would also be a good pairing for vocabulary. I think students would be able to do three panels. Each would show a different scenario and sentence (written in where the caption should be) where that vocab word could be used. This would be an alternative to having students write the word over and over again, but instead engage them with the word and how they would use it in everyday life.
Comic Creator: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/comic-creator-30021.html

Cube Creator

There is a great online tool I found while looking for brainstorming tools for another class. It is called "Cube Creator" from "read write think" and it is great to help students construct their ideas before writing a short story, paper, or a biography. I know this tool would've been very helpful when I was in school because I had difficulty putting all my thoughts into a written assignment. This tool doesn't only help organize your thoughts, but it also helps summarize the information you have constructed.

                                      

There are four different tools that a use can use the "Bio Cube" helps students to write a biography. It allows students to develop an outline on the person by placing their work into chronological order. The best part about this tool is it actually asks prompts about the person. For example, it asks about their background, significance, and personality. I understand that students may find completing biographies to be a daunting task, but this tool makes it so much easier. By asking the appropriate questions, this generator will appeal to students as a guided approach to organize their information and how it should appear for their assignment. Students may also find that this tool works well to construct autobiographies too. Students are asked frequently, especially in elementary school, to compose autobiographies so this tool would be essential to chronologically organize your personal timeline, interests, and personality.

 

The next cube that students can work with is called the “Mystery Cube.” Students can use this cube to help them sort out context clues provided in stories to help them better comprehend texts. Again, this is a tool that can be used especially in elementary school, but also in middle and high school for higher end texts that might be confusing for a student to understand what is occurring in the plot. This tool helps with the mystery genre, which can include many classic pieces of literature read in middle and high school and beginner novels like “Nancy Drew” and “The Hardy Boys,” which are still frequently read in elementary schools today. The best part about this tool is that it helps students identify the key elements of the genre, sort summarizing text, and also provides students with vocabulary from the Mystery genre. This cube also prompts students to answer questions about the setting and characters to also help with comprehension.

 

The next cube is the “Story Cube” which I think is essential for all Language Arts teachers. I am going to use this cube for everything! My students are going to be able to tell me the elements of a story backwards and forwards. This tool helps students to identify and organize characters, which is incredibly helpful. The tool also helps students to cite and explain the elements of the story they are reading. It also prompts them to explain what their favorite part of the story was and why? I think this tool would be helpful for book reports or simply for reinforcement during and after reading a text.

 

The last cube is the “Create Your Own Cube” which can be used for every class! I think that this would be helpful for almost every lesson and it would engage the students with the information they are learning and help them organize their thoughts and information. This would be helpful for History class to report on a possibly current event. In Science class, students could organize the stages of Meiosis and Mitosis and their biology course. The possibilities are endless and this tool is fantastic! I think students may also be as excited as I am over this Cube Creator.  

 

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/cube_creator/
http://edutech4teachers.edublogs.org/2012/04/05/synthesize-with-story-cube/

Writing Picture Prompts with Pinterest

Picture prompts are essential to practice and understand prior to standardized testing where they are always a fixture. Students need to be as prepared a possible to complete this task because if they freeze and are unsure what to write, then they will have wasted a perfectly good opportunity to display their creativity. One of the ways teachers are preparing their students is by giving them writing prompts by using images posted on Pinterest. This would be something that would not only work before the standardized test, but perhaps to engage students in discussion of novels or even Language Arts Concepts.

I have actually included an image from Pinterest above that I could use in a Language Arts class. An action shot, such as this would be great to use as a prompt for a short story assignment where students would have to discuss what has lead up to the events taking place in the picture and what happens afterwards. Also, who are these characters? These are all questions they are going to be asked to address on standardized tests. So, why not start off with two panda bears trying to get over a fence to get their brains accustomed to answering these questions? I would be very curious to hear the stories my students could write about this picture. Teachers should want to make this task beneficial for the students and for themselves, meaning that teachers should give students something fun to write about rather than something boring and not worth writing about. This image may challenge some students. Who knows? The agenda is to begin to engage students and see how they do, then tweak the assignment to helps those who struggled previously do considerably better.


Teachers can also use Pinterest to have student write about novels or comparing characters in novels to athletes or public figures. There was a Pinterest post that asked "What athlete would you compare to Finnick Odair?" Finnick Odair is a character from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and if you are teaching The Hunger Games in your classroom, this may be a great shift to picture prompts and piquing a student’s interest in this form of writing. Eventualy students will need to become familiarized with formal writing prompts which may include either a piece of art work, a picture from a novel, or a simple picture (Like the one above).

To prepare the students for the actually exam, teachers might feel inclined to use practice picture prompts that were included in past tests and have been retired. I remember being given a picture of a house with children playing outside either in middle or high school. It was the simplest thing, but I didn't have enough preparation for it. Teachers focus on mostly what is to be expected on the multiple choice questions because those are more frequent. Students should be given a well rounded review for a standardized test and I would make sure that my students have picture prompts to respond to either daily or weekly which I believe will give them enough practice to feel confident while taking their test.

http://pinterest.com/selsmith479/writing-picture-prompts/

Using ELMO in the classroom

As a substitute teacher, I find that the ELMO document camera is one of the most useful forms of technology in the classroom. There are so many uses for this device. One of the ways teachers can implement this technology is by using it to reduce the use of paper copies when going over passages in classes or articles, instead the teacher can put the information on the ELMO and the whole class can look at the text, read it, and then respond to it in a class discussion. Another use for the ELMO is to place a timer under the camera for time management. Most of the time teachers roughly give students a time limit to complete a task in class, but rarely does that time match up to what the teacher actually gives students to finish the assignment. I know that I normally go about 10 minutes extra then what I typically give students initially to finish their assignments. That way students are more focused on their work then perhaps zoning out or talking with their friends.

I had also spoken about the ELMO in my post for Interactivity #5 about a student teaching the class using an ELMO during a math session. I had walked into the classroom and the teacher was allowing a student to go over the math homework by choosing different classmates to tell him the answer and how they solved it. He then marked the process on the paper under the ELMO. Now, I have had this student before and to he is a bit of a handful. By giving him the task of taking charge and conducting a review made him confident and he did such a wonderful job by getting other shy students involved. Walking in and watching a student teaching the class is not something I thought would be a good idea, but this session completely changed my point of view and has encouraged me as a future educator to implement this into my classroom.

Besides saving paper, teachers can also save time writing assignments on the board daily. Most Language Arts teachers assign daily prompts for students to respond to each day. Instead of everyday writing these prompts on the board, they can be filed and displayed on the ELMO every morning. This would also be useful every year as well and save the teacher a lot of time. Another use for the ELMO would be for graphic organizers. I was subbing in a 7th grade science class and they were going over the phases of the moon. The teacher gave them the assignment to go out every night and shade in exactly how they see the moon and to give which phase it is in. The teacher went over the past two nights, since they weren't assigned them and she marked exactly how they should fill in their organizer. Modeling with the ELMO is beneficial because they can see exactly how to do the assignment and if they have any questions, they can ask them as you are doing the assignment.

As a future English educator I would anticipate using the ELMO to help my students peer edit and revise drafts of papers they will be writing for me. I remember having teachers use transparencies or going up on the board to do this task, but the ELMO has made it so much easier. I would be able to let them come up and show me how they would choose to edit their paper or someone else's paper to provide an example of how they should do the assignment. Also, students could teach other students and I would also have an idea of how well they are generally doing on the assignment and what I can do further to help them.

http://www.edtechnetwork.com/document_cameras.html

Interactivity #5

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auxbf2gsFYKRdGFaWWdfRjVKNUpzS20tTVVCTE5QcEE

 

For this Interactivity I chose to interview a teacher I had actually been subbing for during Renaissance Training. The teacher is a 7^th Grade English teacher in the Rockaway Township Public Schools District. After familiarizing myself with both NETS-S and NETS-T I then felt comfortable enough to ask the teacher questions based on the survey questions provided in the blog post. I began by asking the teacher if he/she was familiar with NETS, but they said that they had heard of it, but was not entirely sure what it is. The teacher was also unfamiliar if their school had begun to implement the new NETS for students. The teacher believed that the school district had begun to implement the new NETS for students though; the teacher was not 100% percent certain. The teacher believed that the new NETS for students were being implemented by the state of New Jersey. After I asked these basic questions, I then showed the teacher the standards for both NETS-S and NETS-T. While the teacher was looking over the documents, the teacher immediately recognized that the district was in fact using NETS-S and that all teachers were implementing the standards. It was apparent that the teacher hadn’t been properly introduced to the standards, but was familiar with how he/she goes about using them in his/her lesson plans. Teachers have been trained in initial technology within their classrooms including the use of the ELMO, STARboard and SMARTboard training.

So initially the teacher was not very knowledgeable on the topic and actually asked another teacher, 8^th grade science, which was passing by if they had ever heard of NET-S. That teacher too wasn’t familiar of the standards, but when it was explained, a light bulb went off and that teacher too instantaneously knew that he/she had been using NETS-S in their lessons too. The teachers told me that they use these standards to enrich their plans. Their SMART boards and STAR boards, very similar, but use different software, have made their classrooms very different from a decade ago. They said that once they first received the technology in the classroom that they were afraid they would break it, but now their students are proficient in using the boards to participate in class discussion or even to go over example from their homework. I asked them if they believe that NET-S has made students more active in the classrooms in contrast to the past decade. They said that students have been able to learn more creatively due to NETS-S because almost all lessons use a piece of technology which helps them pay attention and ultimately achieve higher test scores.

I was taken aback a bit that not many teachers are familiar with these standards, even though they do in fact use them in their lessons. More school districts should formally introduce these standards to their teachers and make sure they are aligning the standards with lesson plans properly. I believe the number 4 standard: Promote and Model Digital Leadership is extremely important and I would advocate this standard the most because I have seen students actually teaching their classmates using ELMOs and it was really something. They feel confident using the technology which makes them confident engaging with the material. I had never thought I would walk into a classroom and see students so excited about math. As a future educator I would actually get together with people within my respective content area and discuss monthly how we could implement NETS-S and NETS-T to the best of its capabilities within lessons. Teachers usually have these meetings weekly within my school district, but to have a session where they only address NETS-S and NETS-T would be beneficial to not only the teachers, but the students as well.

Social Media and Creative Writing

Social media has introduced people to a new way of looking at literature and ways of conducting literature. While browsing, I came across a truly intriguing idea that would interest students who may not have a genuine appreciation for poetry. Most students find poetry to be boring or difficult to understand, but by giving it a modern interpretation may entice students to engage with the idea that poetry can be entirely different than they could have imagined. A user on the site "Novel Novice" introduced an idea that was so ingenious regarding having students design either a short story or poem by using words or ideas found by browsing sites like twitter and facebook. The intent would be that students would engage with their social media, which is presumably used daily, in a completely different way. The task would be to browse for about an hour "eavesdropping" on others online interactions then collect comments that you find either amusing or interesting. Once the student has collected about a page worth of comments, they must some how find a way to piece together the words or phrases to make a coherent creative story or poem.

I think this assignment would go over really well in the classroom because it can guide students away from the cliche of poetry being entirely over sophisticated and instead make it completely approachable. If I were to give this assignment I would first inform my students to pick APPROPRIATE material. Sometimes if you give students an inch of freedom they will take a mile. Second, I would urge them to use grammatical errors they find and perhaps highlight or underline them to show they understand the grammar or spelling is incorrect, but that is how they found the items they chose. These words or phrases they are using are “borrowed” so it will be difficult for them to give a works cited page due to privacy issues. I would go on faith that these words and phrases are in fact borrowed and not completely fabricated. I believe I would have the students try out this task as a poem using only single words they found first just to introduce them to the idea of “Social Media Creative Writing” and then have them branch out to complete a short story made up of short phrases. The students would be very amused by what their classmates have found through their computer research and how they interpreted those words and phrases.

This activity may also be an opportunity to teach children about other in class activities regarding the same idea. “Exquisite Corpse” is a game I have played in my poetry classes where students are given a sheet of paper and they must write down a word which will then be folded and put into an object to later be drawn. Students will then be grouped together and as a group form a poem by picking at random words provided from their classmates. This activity would perhaps even be a precursor to the online assignment to familiarize the students with the concept of creative writing.

As a related activity, students could write a short story using a Twitter feed using a hashtag. They would be able to, as a class, create a story with each part only using 140 characters or less. I would have to first introduce the students to Twitter and show them how to get an account and essentially how to use it. We can take a trip to the computer lab and go round robin posting our contribution of 140 character or less. I would then piece together the story and present it to the class during our next session and perhaps post it for everyone to view and show their friends and families how we were able to use social media to construct a truly creative online short Twitter story.



http://novelnovice.com/2010/04/14/creative-writing-prompt-social-media-musings/

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/less-is-more-using-social-media-to-inspire-concise-writing/